Book Review! Illuminating Gracie by Lisa Temple

I had a really hard time getting into this book… which is really disappointing because the plot was so promising. First off, I noticed that Temple had a tendency to use a lot of “fancy” words. A variety of words isn’t a terrible thing when writing, but using them constantly just trips the reader up.

I also didn’t really like Gracie very much. I had a really hard time connecting/relating to her. She didn’t really talk/act like I thought a teenager would and some of the decisions that she made seemed strange beyond her special brand of crazy. I found myself playing on Facebook instead of reading the book and I didn’t really think about the plot or characters when I wasn’t reading.

In the beginning I could tell that Temple was trying to create an air of mystery and confusion, but it was a little too mysterious and confusing. Then she would throw in these awkwardly obvious clues as to what was going on, but they were usually clues as to things the reader had already figured out. The book got a little less confusing and a little more interesting towards the end, but I still had a hard time deducing what motivated some of the characters to act the way that they did.

It was an okay read. I hope the next book is a little better, because I really liked the idea behind the series. (I think it’s going to be a series, not 100% but it seemed like that’s what this book was setting up…?)